Watchful

By Anselm Brocki

You know the fake
"uncle" Edward I've
mentioned before,
the hunchbacked
pharmacist who
wears a tailor-made
single-breasted black
suit, works the night
shift at the only all-
night pharmacy in
downtown L.A., and
got me an unused box
-seat ticket to my first
opera, Carmen, done
by the WPA at the
Philharmonic. Well,
my mother says I am
never to leave my
sister alone in the house
with him, and I am to be
particularly careful when
out going door-to-door
for him, asking people
if I can have a few green
berries from their pots
of spiky ferns on their
front porches, while he
drives along the street,
keeping up with me
in his 1937 black Hudson,
but she didn't go into
details, which I guess
are too horrible to say
out loud.